


The Will of Our Heavenly Father

by Sangerin



Category: Big Love
Genre: FLDS, Gen, Yuletide, Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-02
Updated: 2008-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-04 22:19:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sangerin/pseuds/Sangerin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Prophet has sealed me to Roman Grant, for time and eternity - and what the Prophet wills is the will of the Heavenly Father.  (Roman Grant, three wives, one daughter, one enemy...)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Will of Our Heavenly Father

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lollard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lollard/gifts).



> Written for Yuletide 2007. 
> 
> I feel slightly bad because Agonistes complimented me on the fact that I did research for this, and... I didn't. I have a disturbing amount of general knowledge about Mormons floating about in my head... The rest I made up out of whole cloth.

**Diantha Smith Grant**

I am the ancestress of a prophet and bear the name of a prophetess, and yet I am married to a mere numbers man. An _assistant_. I was born to be the wife of a prophet - my name and heritage demand it.

Yet these are dangerous, sinful thoughts. The Prophet has sealed me to Roman Grant, for time and eternity - and what the Prophet wills is the will of the Heavenly Father. But I lay in my bed at night, next to my husband, my husband's only wife, and think of the Big House and the women who live there, who receive the adulation due to the wives of the Prophet, and I sin through my thoughts for I envy them. I envy them their sister-wives. Soon, Roman will be granted a second wife, and we will no longer be second-class citizens. We will no longer be labelled, singled out as unworthy by being only a man and one woman. And once Roman has a second, he will again be able to hold his head up among the other men. And he will believe in himself and in the revelations God has sent and will send.

**Adaleen Limburgh Grant**

When Adaleen married Roman she became her own step-grandmother, but there were stranger family trees at Juniper Creek, including some that no one wanted to enquire into too closely. Roman's First smiled at Adaleen on her wedding day, and took the shy seventeen year old into the house and wiped away her terrified tears before Roman noticed. She kept Adaleen by her side for the first year, protecting her from the cattiness of the four wives between them, and then, after a year, flung Adaleen amongst them as a pigeon among cats, their claws sharpened by the favour she'd been given since she was sealed.

Adaleen emerged triumphant, strengthened like steel tempered by fire, and the threads of power in the Big House centred themselves in Adaleen's hands.

It was noted by the other women of Adaleen's age that her friends made good marriages, and her enemies bad ones.

 

**Lois Henrickson Harlow**

That man stole my birthright and had me married off to a mindless, graceless horror of a man. Frank Harlow couldn't hold his head up in my Daddy's presence but once old Roman was in charge... Prophet, huh. It was that sneaky little bitch Diantha that gave him the idea. Roman Grant never had an original thought in his life, and never would have, but for that harlot of a First. Money is all well and good, of course, but she should have been happy with Roman as he was. Accountants always have money. But no, she wanted to be married to a prophet. And since she couldn't very well marry my father - whatever her sainted ancestors had done (Zina Diantha had two husbands, or was it three, back in Carthage or Kirkland or Nauvoo, but that was different, and even Diantha Smith knew it) - she whispered in Roman's ear and convinced him that she was God. Or speaking for God. Or some fool thing.

And Adaleen's just the same. They got on like a house afire those two - Diantha had Adaleen picked out from when she was five years old, just as Adaleen's done with that little twit Rhonda. Only Diantha had the sense to choose someone who grew into her power. Rhonda wants the power she thinks Roman can bring her, but she can't see that most of the power is still clutched tightly in Adaleen's grasping hands. And the youngest wife always has longest to wait. Even one as pretty and cunning as Rhonda.

 

**Nicolette Grant Henrickson**

Nicolette Grant was the golden girl - daughter of the Prophet, and of the Prophet's favoured wife. Those who watched the sealings at Juniper Creek doubted that the man existed who could satisfy Nikki, her mother and her father. A girl like Nikki had to marry up, and for the golden girl, there was no up.

Which left marrying out. A strategic alliance with another group, perhaps? If Roman could find one that he didn't consider apostate, and given that they (those at Juniper Creek) were the One True Church and no one else could lay claim to truth nor a righteous relationship with the Heavenly Father, such a marriage for Nikki seemed unlikely.

Not as unlikely, though, as marriage to the grandson of the False Prophet, a man who had abandoned the Principle, who had lived as a man of the World, who had denounced his own family and Prophet to the devil's own tool - the secular media.

But what the Prophet willed was the will of our Heavenly Father. And the Prophet willed that Nikki leave them to live in Salt Lake City, to live in the World, care for Henrickson's ailing first wife (who was clearly collecting the wages of sin) and bring up those poor, abandoned children that they might choose the right and grow in the Principle.

Those same observers noted that the Prophet did not bid his daughter goodbye.

 

**Rhonda Volmer**

Sometimes I hate him. Sometimes I don't. And it's nice to live in the Big House and be treated properly by everyone except that witch Adaleen, and Roman treats me nice, I guess, for an old man. But if I'm going to be a wife I don't see why I should have to do lessons. I don't see why Roman and I shouldn't go to New York. All the girls say that it's only when you marry that you understand true freedom... well freedom is going to New York to be an actress. And doing what I want. Telling that cat Adaleen to go jump in the lake and take her algebra and geography with her. As if I'll ever need to know any of that. The sister-wives can all fix machinery and cook and look after their babies, and all I need to do is sit with old Roman in his office and pat his wrinkled old hands and look young and pretty. And he'll kiss my hands and pat my head and we'll sing. And everyone will know that I am sealed to the Prophet, and they'll treat me with respect. Even Sarah. And Heather. They'll have to treat me with respect when I'm married and they're still children. Especially Heather. Who will grow up to be cursed, barren and lonely, because she has rejected the right of the Principle.

They are sinners. They are sinners who will never attain the Celestial Kingdom. Who have turned their backs on our Heavenly Father, and Roman, his Prophet here on Earth. Sometimes I hate him. Sometimes I don't.


End file.
